Fundamentals and Gamey

[Shadowstar]

One of the unique things about Starscape is that RP is actually rewarded in the game itself. You can use a dynamic roleplaying system to actually invent your own components, facilities, etc. which are then unique to your race, but you can sell them to others if they are willing to buy them. (it's even possible to RP with an ally and invent stuff as a joint effort - for example the Unity Starbase in Starfleet Command III)

There are a number of other RP-related things, such as politics and exploration, as well as an independent mIRC-based classic RPG game in the tradition of the old tabletop RPG's which can be played (usually on the weekends) and will have effects in the game itself. Imagine creating a character as the captain of one of your largest in-game flagships and giving him a daring mission on an alien world, and he ends up discovering a new technology that your empire can then use in the game... It's also possible for races to carryover thier accomplishments from past games into the next game. Races are either indigenous or non-indigenous (non-indigenous is usually reserved for the players who are playing the same race in a new game-region). Non-indigenous races start with technology based on thier previous levels (though none of the fields will be as high), but won't have any planets to start with. They have a massive colony ship and must find a viable world to colonize, so although they will have better tech than the indigenous races, they won't have the resources of a homeworld to use, and the indigenous races (with the resources of thier homeworlds) will likely advance much faster, and should be able to catch up to the non-indigenous races by the time they have established a colonial empire with a similar economy value.

RP also plays a part in allowing races to creatively discover new technology, aside from the old method of colonizing planets with ruins on them, game-events (which I, as the gamemaster create) can give players "quests" which they can complete to find new technology.

Of course, all of this is driven by my dynamic mod-updating system which allows me to make changes to the actual mod data without disrupting the flow of the game.

Hopefully this post wasn't incredibly off topic, but I figure we're talking about RP versus Gamey, and my mod aims to eliminate Gamey while promoting RP to the maximum extent. After all, that's what Starscape for Stars! did. SEIV just gives me so much more flexibility...